​Lolo Jones Joins Bobsled Team For Winter Games

Lolo Jones may have another chance to win gold after making the women’s bobsled team, which will compete for a spot in the up coming 2014 Winter games. Jones, 30, specializes in the 60 and 100 meter hurdles and has won three NCAA titles and garnered 11 All-American honors while at LSU.

The United States Summer Olympics track star won indoor national titles in 2007, 2008 and 2009 in the 60 m hurdles, with gold medals at the World Indoor Championship in 2008 and 2010.

However, when it has come to the Olympic games it has been a disappointment for the athlete. She was favored to win the 100 m hurdles at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but she tripped on the penultimate hurdle, finishing in seventh place. Then at this past Summer games in London, Jones could only muster up a fourth-place finish, just missing a medal.

U.S. bobsled coach Todd Hays had recruited Jones for the team. Now only 3 weeks after trying the sport for the first time, Jones has been announced as one of the members of the team as a pusher. The announcement was made in Lake Placid, N.Y., on Thursday morning. The team will also include Olympic sprinting gold medalist Tianna Madison.

Both track stars were among a small number of track athletes invited to Lake Placid for bobsled’s push championships this month, by Hayes. He believed veteran Olympians would, if nothing else, help some of the team’s younger competitors and raise morale on the team.

Hayes added, he also sought athletes from the track world, because of their strength and explosiveness which is the perfect combination to get a sled going quickly down an icy chute.

Both Madison and Jones will now compete in the World Cup competition in Lake Placid on Nov. 8 for a shot to qualify for the 2014 Sochi Games.